The Celtic Literature Collective

The Greek Anthology

Book VII. 492. Anyte of Mitylene (?)

We leave thee, Miletus, dear fatherland, refusing the lawless love of the impious Gauls, three maidens, thy citizens, whom the sword of the Celts forced to this fate. We brooked not the unholy union nor such a wedding, but we put ourselves in the wardship of Hades.1




Book IX. 125. Anonymous

The brave Celts test their children in the jealous Rhine, and none regards himself as being the child's father until he sees it washed by that venerated river. At once, when the babe has glided from its mother's lap and sheds its first tears, the father himself lifts it up and places it on his shield, caring naught for its suffering; for he does not feel for it lie a father until he sees it judged by the bath in the river, the test of conjugal fidelity. The mother, suffering new pangs added to those of childbirth, even though she knows him to be the child's true father, awaits in fear and trembling the pronoucement of the inconstant stream.




283. Crinagoras

Ye Pyrenees and ye deep-valleyed Alps that look down from nigh on the sources of the Rhine, ye are witness of the lightning that Germanicus flashes forth as he smites the celts with the thunderbolts of war. In masses the foe fell, and Enyo said to Ares, "It is to such hands as these that our help is due."




368. The Emperor Julian
On Beer

who and whence art thou, Dionysus? For, by the true Bacchus, I know thee not: I know only the son of Zeus. He smells the nectar, but thou of billy-goat. Did the Celts lack of grapes make thee out of corn? then thou shouldst be called Demetrius, not Dionysus, being born of Corn, rather than of fire, and Bromus2 rather than Bromius.




PATON'S NOTES
1. This tale seems to be derived from some romance. According to Jerome (Adv. Jovianum, Lib. I, p. 186) the maidens were seven in number.

2. "Bromus" is the Greek for oats; Bromius is a common title of Dionysus, derived probably from "bromus"=noise. In πῡρογενη̑, "wheat-born," there is a play on πῠρογενη̑, "fire born"

SOURCE
Paton, William. R. The Greek Anthology. vol. II, III. NY: Putnam, 1919